So Cold
by believeindreamers
Summary: This is a one-shot ficlet to the song 'So Cold' by Breaking Benjamin, which just wouldn't leave me along until I wrote it. It's OotP compliant, and would begin the summer after fifth year.


* * *

_**crowded streets are cleared away  
one by one**_

They were dying all around him now . . . each night saw less of them return safely home . . saw more of them thrown carelessly into shallow graves by men in white masks and dark robes who laughed softly as they tallied up the score: Aurors 17, Death Eaters, 230.

**_hollow heroes separate  
as they run_**

Dumbledore forced them apart – it wasn't safe, he said, for Harry to remain in close contact with his friends, or even with the other members of the Order. It wasn't safe for them, he meant, and Harry didn't bother with denial.

**_you're so cold keep your hand in mine  
wise men wonder while strong men die_**

It amused him, that the Headmaster insisted still on believing in the basic good of mankind. Harry knew better . . . knew that there is no _good_, merely lesser degrees of evil. It was funny, sometimes, how Dumbledore deliberately took the time to think of such things. Sometimes it was only sad. He was only a boy, and the Order looked to him to lead them as Albus Dumbledore gradually went insane . . . the old man had never fully recovered from the torture session he'd undergone at Voldemort's hands. But Dumbledore had gotten back alive, and that was more than could be said for Severus. At least, they wished the former spy were dead, hoped it were so – a quick death was far preferable when compared to an existence dominated wholly by the Dark Lord's apparently limitless capacity for violence. To think of Severus, still alive somehow and screaming for them, for salvation, for death, was more than Harry could stand.

**_if you find your family  
don't you cry  
in this land of make believe  
dead and dry_**

Harry didn't cry anymore for the lost ones. They were _all_ lost now, if Voldemort won, and that was looking more likely by the day. It had been months since he'd seen his childhood companions, but somehow in the middle of the field, after yet another battle won in name but not worth the lives it cost, he came face to face with Ron, as the youngest boy knelt beside his father's body and sobbed. Harry didn't tell him that Charlie and Bill were dying not twenty feet away despite Madame Pomphrey's care, nor that Percy lay dead almost at his brother's feet, face hidden behind one of those white masks. He didn't mention that Fred had followed George in that most final of ways, had slit his own wrists, unable to deal with the loss of his twin. He didn't say anything at all, because really, what words were there for times such as these?

**_you're so cold but you feel alive  
lay your hands on me one last time_**

He wasn't entirely certain what day it was. He was certain that it no longer mattered. The weight of the world rested heavily on still-slender shoulders; the others saw him breaking apart under the burden, but who else could do what he did? What other man could stand toe to toe with Voldemort and match him curse for curse . . . what other man among them could say the monster's name without fear? Albus was as good as dead, mumbling to himself half the day and pleading desperately for a mercy that had come too late. Even Harry's sanity was under question, these days. Two nights ago, Voldemort had called him to the black gates of Durmstrang, and the last remaining members of the Order had watched their fearless leader sob like the child he was as he stared up at the bodies hung from the spiked iron posts: Hermione . . . Ron . . . Ginny . . . Neville . . . Draco, who'd apparently turned out all right in the end, for all the good it did him. And Severus, doubter turned devoted, who'd gone back into that viper's nest one last time on Harry's order and not returned. Harry's tears coursed down his cheeks as he stretched out his hand to touch their faces, his eyes begging for forgiveness as he gently removed them from the gate.

**_satisfied and empty inside  
that's alright  
let's give this another try_**

Harry was sober when he marched forth to meet Voldemort on the field of battle one last time. It was the first time in weeks that McGonagall had seen him without a bottle of vodka in hand; thank Merlin he fought nearly as well drunk as not. But his green eyes were blank, empty, and his former Head of House was reminded of nothing so much a thestral's eerie gaze.

**_show me how it ends it's alright  
show me how defenseless you really are_**

Remus didn't see the duel himself, but he heard of it from others . . . how Voldemort had left his opponent lying limply on the grass and turned away . . . how Harry had risen unsteadily to his feet and cast that all-important curse before collapsing at his rival's feet. In truth, it didn't seem to matter so much, the epic battle that had only just ended, the Light's final victory over Darkness. It was all just so pointless, that he'd stepped over Voldemort's lifeless body on his way to Harry's side and it was over, when Harry's blood was covering his hands and those green eyes were locked on his. Nothing mattered in those final moments, when Harry murmured, "I'm sorry," in the softest voice imaginable and Remus only managed to choke out a strangled, "What for?" with the greatest of efforts. "Because I want to go," Harry said with the utmost sincerity, and Remus could only nod. By the time the mediwizards arrived, Remus's robes were tinted crimson from the blood, and the Boy-Who-Lived, lived no longer.

They held a memorial service for him, that didn't do him justice. They gave him awards, but couldn't find words for the enormity of what a sixteen-year-old boy had done for them. They made him a statue that stood in the center of Diagon Alley, of Harry as Remus best remembered him. As a thirteen-year-old wizard without a care in the world, standing between an enormous wolf – a werewolf you could tell if you looked closely – and a huge grimlike black dog, with a stag standing behind him and Ron and Hermione laughing with him, sharing the fun. In his mind, Remus filled in the missing pictures of the scene, the ones not captured in stone – Dumbledore, eyes twinkling as he watched them – Severus, glaring sternly so no one would notice the smile that threatened to ruin his daunting reputation – James and Lily, standing over their son with such pride in their eyes. And Remus thought, perhaps, he knew why Harry had wanted to go.

**_it's alright_**


End file.
